The Aylesford Skull

by James P. Blaylock

  Hasbro calmly and deliberately shot the man in the arm. The truncheon dropped onto the road, and yet the giant came on, his arm hanging uselessly. The sight of two pistols at close range apparently changed his thinking, and he crashed away into the bush and was gone. The road before was empty. Behind them the body of the man who had fallen out of the tree lay crumpled and still some distance back, as did the body of the man with the pistol who had traveled beneath the wheels. The horse that had stumbled and gone down, miraculously, was gone, as were both Fred and George. St. Ives was happy about the horse. The two men lying on the road didn’t concern him overmuch.

  He and Hasbro had the advantage for the moment, and by mutual unspoken consent they were underway again, moving ahead at a canter, through open country. St. Ives sat in the bed of the wagon, now, holding a pistol in his surprisingly bloody hand. The splinter of wood from the edge of the wagon bed had done its work, although there was still only middling pain. He set the pistol atop his open portmanteau, removed his coat, and pressed a kerchief to the wound, which, thank God, was shallow, the flow of blood deceptive and easily staunched. He fully expected the three survivors to make a second attempt, and he watched the road for a sign of them, ready to blow them to kingdom come this time without any ceremony. They were serious, determined men, which was troubling.

  The minutes passed, and the road remained empty – no dust, no sound but the rattling and creak of the wagon and Logarithm’s hooves as he cantered along. St. Ives’s mind calmed now that the storm was past, and he clambered back onto his seat, leaving the portmanteau open.

  “Narbondo is beyond our reach now,” he said flatly.

  “Indeed, sir, although I would wager that he was well beyond it as soon as we turned off the highway in Wrotham. He no doubt passed along the London Road as we first assumed.”

  Ahead of them lay a proper road now. When they came up to it they saw a sign at the juncture that read “Harvel,” with an instructive arrow pointing west. They turned in that direction, bound once again for the Gravesend Road. Another wagon moved along ahead of them in the near distance, and there were farms on either side once again. They were safe from another surprise, but two hours out of the way now – a fact that St. Ives forced out of his mind.

  “Fred and George needn’t have followed us,” he said to Hasbro. “That seems to be telling. We were doing well enough on our own once we had taken their advice.”

  “Precisely, sir. We were gone off on a fool’s errand, and would have found ourselves in this very spot in any event.”

  “Which means that they intended to lure us into the countryside in order to murder us, not merely to slow us down.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Narbondo is certainly capable of murdering us for mere sport,” St. Ives said, “but it seems wasteful to send five men to accomplish it.”

  “I believe that you miscalculate, sir. His desire to murder for pleasure is a weakness in the man. Certainly Narbondo has reason to hate the both of us, but I’m convinced that he fears us as well, or something like it. We’ve repeatedly interfered with him, and he was very nearly brought to bay at the Chalk Cliffs and was thwarted on Morecambe Bay. He must by now suspect that he overreached himself when he lingered dangerously in Aylesford. When he kidnapped Eddie, he put a spade through the hornets’ nest, sir, and he knows it.”

  St. Ives thought again of his conversation with Mother Laswell, and his words to Alice came back to him. The entire business of the Aylesford Skull and the portal to the land of the dead might well be nonsense, as he had insisted – surely it was – but Narbondo did not see it as nonsense. He saw it as something considerably more dangerous than that – something worth sending five men to waylay them on the road. Hasbro was in the right of it again. This was something much more than old grudges. St. Ives had trivialized it to his own and his family’s peril. But John Mason hadn’t trivialized it, nor had Mother Laswell or her vivisectionist husband, nor did Narbondo. There was a trail of dead people down the years, and St. Ives and Hasbro had nearly joined their ranks, because St. Ives had compelled himself to see the entire business as tiresome nonsense.

  As if he had just learned a useful lesson in the dangers of stupidity, easy assumptions, and shallow logic, he thought again of his ill-fated interlude two weeks ago in London – of the notebooks and their theft and the part he had played in the entire wretched business. The thing was clear to him suddenly, as if a shade had been drawn back. It had been a night-and-day swindle – the notebooks, their disappearance, and the botched attempt to buy back something that quite likely hadn’t been worth a tinker’s dam to begin with – a swindle that had ended in bloody death for a desperate man who was a mere pawn, and a cartful of regret for St. Ives.

  The whole thing had the virtue of being a multifarious lesson, however, and, if nothing more, he knew now the place where they were bound in the great city of London, and how they might come to terms with the man they would find there after stabling their horse and wagon. It was the first sensible thing that had come into his mind since he had heard Mrs. Langley pounding away on the scullery door. It wasn’t much of a victory, but he had been a damnably dull creature this past twenty-four hours, and even this small victory put an edge on him again.

  FIFTEEN

  THE GOAT AND CABBAGE

  The fish and seaweed reek of Billingsgate Market hung in the warm air along the Thames, the stone walls of the vast fish market doing little to contain it. The smell filled Finn with memories, recalling the days that he had worked with Square Davey, the oyster dredger, and had spent his time on the river, or loitering along Lower Thames Street, watching the boats come into the Custom House or the sunset from London Bridge or the hundreds of tall ships in the Pool. At night there was Toole’s Theatre, and Mr. Woodin’s Carpet Bag Wheeze, Mr. Woodin diving into his bag in the disguise of Martha Mivens and climbing out moments later as Major Bluster, better than anything old Duffy had put up during Finn’s years in Duffy’s Circus. It had been easy enough to sneak into Toole’s and save the odd penny, and he smiled at the memory of it, although it was not a thing he would readily tell Alice or the Professor. He wondered, though, what was playing at Toole’s this evening and whether the old dodge would still serve. But there was no discovering it, no going back.

  A score of oyster boats were moored along the wharf that was commonly called “Oyster Street.” Early this morning they would have been swarming with people looking to purchase oysters by the bushel basketful, dripping with sand and sludge, brought upriver from the Thames Estuary, the best from Whitsable and points farther south. Finn could easily picture the early morning crowds, the sailors taking their ease, the salesmen shouting, the baskets drawn dripping from the hold, the coffee houses serving out coffee and bread and butter.

  By ten o’clock this morning, though, it would have been over, and it was late now – three in the afternoon, the market finished, the coffee houses nearly empty of custom. Davey’s oyster boat lay among the others, its blue-and-red-checked stripe along the waterline making it easily visible. Davey wasn’t aboard, not surprising given the hour. He hadn’t been in Rodway’s Coffee House, either, which meant that he was likely in the Goat and Cabbage, an old, ramshackle public house in Peach Alley, named not for the fruit, but because it had been a haunt of Judases. Guy Fawkes had been betrayed there for a handful of shillings, or so Finn had been told by Square Davey, who was a great man for spinning tales.

  He stepped into the mouth of the narrow alley, the old buildings leaning in overhead to block out the sky, all but a ribbon of it. In the winter months it was either dusk or night in Peach Alley, and even now, in midsummer, the alley lay in shadow, the sun shining only on the top row of dirty, heavily mullioned windows. A dead, half-eaten cat lay in the gutter, which was aswim with filth. Finn stepped over it and made his way down the cobbles, wary of whom he might see, or who might see him. The carved wooden sign depicted a lewd-eyed, bearded goat with a cabbage leaf for a cap. Th
e weathered door opened abruptly, and a man wearing a battered slouch hat staggered out, his red eyes weeping gin, his clothes stinking. He looked back angrily, said something hard, stumbled on the broken curb, and lurched away muttering. Finn felt the hilt of his oyster knife on his belt, well covered by his shirt, and he stepped inside, prepared to slip back out again if Square Davey wasn’t at his usual table – and in that case he would have come to the end of things, with nothing for it but to step aboard Davey’s boat in order to wait and to regret the time slipping away.

  “Finn Conrad, as I live and breathe!” said a voice from the shadows, and he saw Davey sitting in the corner alone, a pint glass half full in front of him. There was a look of surprise on the man’s face, which quickly turned to a smile, and he nodded broadly. As ever, he smoked a bulldog pipe, and the reek hovered in a small cloud over his head. He wasn’t a tall man, but was broad shouldered and heavyset, and he had almost no neck, hence his nickname. His shock of hair was white, although he didn’t have the appearance of being old. Finn had no notion of his age. He looked around for less welcoming faces, didn’t see any, and made his way to the table, where Davey gestured at a chair.

  “A pint of plain for the boy!” Davey shouted at the man behind the bar, who was surly looking and missing an eye. A patch would have made him less hideous, although he could do nothing about his teeth, which were mainly snags. Finn got up to fetch his own pint, which he had no taste for, and then sat back down again. There were two women, tarted up and older than they first appeared, sitting alone some distance away, both of them casting him lascivious looks. He nodded politely and looked away.

  “Ham sandwich, son?” Davey asked. “There’ll be a lad on the street with sandwiches made up fresh. It’s coming on teatime.”

  “No, thank you, sir,” Finn said. “I ate this past hour.” The lie wasn’t a grievous sin, and he could buy his own sandwich on the street. He was in a hurry, and all the more so as evening drew near.

  Davey nodded his head, paused a moment, and said seriously, “I wondered were you dead, Finn. One day you were an oysterman and the next gone away without a word to old Davey. Now here you are, your own self. Come back to the oystering trade have you?”

  “No, sir,” Finn said. “But I miss it. I was just recollecting those spring mornings at Whitsable, sir, with the baskets heaped with oysters. I haven’t forgot that – the dredge coming up so heavy the rig nearly snapped.”

  “Then come along with me in the morning. There’s the boat for a kip tonight. It’s snug enough.”

  “I wish I could, sir, and might one day. But I’ve got to look into something, and it can’t wait. I wonder if you can tell me about a man. He used to be seen here, seemed to have his way with the place, a swart man to look at, although not in color, but dark in spirit, so to speak, and in his clothes and hair. So much evil in him that you could feel the wickedness if you were standing across the street. A hunchback, middling small, mayhaps in a black cape.”

  “Oh, aye,” said Davey, lowering his voice and looking around carefully. There were two men drinking nearby, although one was asleep with his face on the table, and the other was dribbling a glass of gin into his mouth two-handed, one hand gripping the wrist of the other to steady and guide it. “Your man is known as the Doctor hereabouts, although no kind of real medical man, I’d warrant. A blackguard of the worst sort. Devil’s spawn. What of it, Finn? You don’t want nothing to do with the likes of him. You ain’t looking for a situation? It ain’t come to that? I know you were quick with your hands, but were always an honest boy, Finn, never a foist.”

  “No, sir. I learned what I know in the circus, for amusement. A man loves to have his pocket picked for show. Anyway, I don’t need work, especially from old Scratch. I’m growing hops out in Kent. But there’s a man – a friend of mine – whose son’s been kidnapped by the Doctor, as you call him, and it came to me that the Doctor was thick with the man they call the Crumpet. You remember the Crumpet, sir?”

  The old man stared at him for a moment, as if searching his face, then cast his voice even lower and hunched forward. “Someone nearly did for the Crumpet with a knife under the bridge, Finn, the night you run off. I tell you that plainly, for what it’s worth. I’m not the only one as knows it, although no one’s sorry for it.”

  “Nearly, do you say?”

  “Aye, a near-run thing. They say he lay in a fever down the way from this very pub for a week. It was the Doctor who sewed him up and saved his worthless life. They were in some manner of business together, although I haven’t seen neither one along the docks this past year. You remember Spry Jack, the dim-witted boy who hauled rubbish out of the market? He disappeared one night some months after you left. He was seen with the Crumpet down in Spitalfields, Whitechapel Road, the two of them walking hand in hand like father and son. The Doctor lives thereabouts, or so I was told by old Benson, the whelk man, who had a natural fondness for the boy, unlike the Crumpet, whose fondness ain’t natural by a long chalk. Benson looked around the rookery with half a dozen friends, but nothing came of it. No one knew the Crumpet nor the Doctor, you see. No one had seen anything nor knew anything. They live in main fear of the man. Jack never came back to the market, and yet he’d been born there, in among the whelk casks, and lived hereabouts his whole life, which means he’s dead or been taken away. Someone will put an end to the Crumpet for good and all, Finn. He’s past his due. Like as not he knows full well who put a knife in him under the bridge, and he’ll serve that person out if he gets a chance. Do you ken what I say, boy?”

  “I do, sir. And I thank you for saying it. Whitechapel Road?”

  “Spitalfields. Just below Flower and Dean, which is a sort of Hell on Earth, Finn. But if Benson and his lot couldn’t find the precious Doctor, then he doesn’t want to be found. It’ll do you no good to go into the rookery.”

  “It’s murder he’ll commit again if he can’t be found, and my fault, sir. I tell you that plainly.” Saying this out loud brought the truth of it back into his mind, along with a vision of Alice. He couldn’t bear to face her after Eddie was gone. Her sadness was his doing, or close enough, and would be his undoing if he didn’t shift himself. He pushed the thought away so that he could speak. Remorse was best saved for later, when damnation was certain.

  “Then I’ll go along with you, Finn,” Davey said. “I’ll just fetch Lobster Wilson and the two Gulleys. We’ll tackle it tomorrow, but in the light of day.”

  “I guess not, Captain Davey. I have a way about me that makes me hard to see, sir, if I don’t want to be seen. I’d best go alone.”

  Davey shrugged. “It’s a fool’s errand, son, but the Lord bless you. You were always game. You watch yourself with that lot, though. You’ll want humble clothes in the rookery, not that finery you’re wearing now. Rags and tatters is what you need, and your money in your crabshells, although not those as you’ve got on your feet. They’ll put a knife in you for a pair of quality shoes. You won’t find help if you need it, not there, and the worse you need it the less you’ll find it. There’s nought there but thieves and cutthroats. There ain’t but one honest lodging house, and that’s Smith’s. Look it up first thing, and find shelter in it if you’ve got a need. They’ll take you for a sneak straight away, but when they’re a-giving you the bum’s rush, ask for Mr. Sawyer. If he’s in, and ain’t too far gone in drink, tell him you’re a friend of Square Davey, and he’ll do you right. But don’t go asking him about the Doctor or the Crumpet or anything else that’ll put a knife in his back, or yours.”

  “All right. Sawyer it is. At Smith’s.”

  “And one other thing. I can tell you that the Doctor’s been seen on the river. Not much happens on the river that I don’t hear of sooner or later. Could be he’s turned pirate or smuggler or both down around Egypt Bay, back in the marsh. More than one boat’s been lost out there on a black night this last six months, one just a few weeks back, or so says a boy who was fished out of the river. Two others who
were fished out dead weren’t so talkative.”

  SIXTEEN

  SLOCUMB’S MILLINERY

  “I wonder if your master is in,” St. Ives said to the boy who was sweeping the footpath in front of Slocumb’s Millinery in Cheapside. “I owe him a small debt. Perhaps you would step inside and tell Mr. Slocumb that Langdon St. Ives would like to settle up. Tell him it has to do with the business of the illustrations by Joseph Banks. Can you remember all that?” He handed the boy a shilling to cement his memory and then sent him inside. St. Ives made himself visible in the sunshine, so that Slocumb might glimpse him through the window. He wanted to put the wind up the man.

  There were dozens of hats on display in the window, hung on wooden hooks and perched high on top of wooden heads. The shop was gaily painted and well kept: no dust, no dead flies behind the glass. The prices were genteel. From what St. Ives could see there were no customers in the shop, and he wondered whether the manufacture of hats turned any sort of profit, or whether Slocumb depended on more interesting pursuits. St. Ives studied his own reflection in the bright glass, not entirely happy with what he saw, but he assumed that Slocumb was also studying it, unhappy for other reasons entirely.

  He heard footsteps approaching behind him, and he looked back into the surprised face of the very woman to whom he had given five crowns, whose husband was now a two-weeks-old memory. She stopped and stared at him, as if trying to make sense of his presence, just as he was trying to make sense of hers. And then she shifted her eyes and stepped past him and into Slocumb’s without a word spoken, her presence both a mystery and a complication.

  St. Ives had only a moment to contemplate this before there sounded a whistle from the back of the shop, and he set off at a run around the edge of the building, where he found Hasbro holding a resigned Slocumb by the collar some few feet from the rear door. Slocumb was a nondescript man, of medium height and build, the sort of man one might glance at but not really see – a useful anonymity if one were describing him to the police. He wore spectacles that were contrived to make him appear owlishly studious, worn low on his nose, which gave him an appearance of condescension. His demeanor changed again when he removed the spectacles, as he did now. It seemed to St. Ives that there was no fear about him, however, but something more like resignation.